Unleashing innovation

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Jurgen Herbst

"For over two hundred years, legislators, educators, and public-minded citizens have debated ways of governing their country's public schools. In these debates the opportunity - or absence - of participating in the choice and the administration of schools has been an ever-present concern to parents. This new book from historian Jurgen Herbst reviews these debates and discusses such present-day school choice related issues as racial integration, ethnicity, social class, vouchers, charter, magnet, and private schools in the United States, the former German Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany."--Jacket.

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Niels Barmeyer

"Since the 1994 Zapatista uprising in the southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas, the indigenous population has seen a lot of changes. These have been particularly salient with regard to nongovernmental (NGO) development projects that have provided marginalized communities with social and economic infrastructure that operate independently from the Mexican state. NGOs and solidarity groups continue to play an increasingly important role in helping these communities strengthen their autonomy in the regions controlled by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Niels Barmeyer devoted time in Chiapas in the mid-1990s as a human rights activist and later as an NGO volunteer and PhD researcher. Based on these experiences, he provides an in-depth analysis of the advances and limitations of the Zapatista autonomy project over the past fourteen years. Barmeyer's study includes personal histories of indigenous people and international activists from four rebel communities who are involved in NGO development projects. Their stories of clandestine organization, land occupation, raising money and support, and internal disagreements offer a range of perspectives."--Back cover.

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Joseph Murphy, Lynn G. Beck

Among the most pervasive of school reform theories is school-based management (SBM), and for anyone searching for a clear, thorough explanation of SBM, this book is the answer. Murphy and Beck systematically lead you through the definitions, premises, and types (structural and political) of SBM. The authors give a historical perspective and analysis of the movement, including a discussion of the recurring cycles of centralization and decentralization. They also examine the domains of SBM activity, including goals, budget, curriculum and instruction, personnel, and organizational structures.

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Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein

" It's a paradox: as big companies get better at achieving operational excellence, actual breakthroughs seem to decrease. It's the scrappy little startups, with comparatively tiny budgets, that continue to be founts of innovation. Why is it that as industry leaders get better at what they do, they get worse at innovation? By conducting deep research within companies as diverse as Apple, Google, Pfizer, General Motors, Nike, and Sony, the authors have found the answer: the very pursuit of operational excellence--that is, making one's existing business as efficient as it can be--blinds managers to the kinds of disruptive business model changes vital for innovation. These changes could threaten all that hard work. It's why Nokia famously killed its smart phone--the company was too invested in "dumb phones." Nothing less than a complete redesign and rethinking of the corporation--down to how accountants capture innovation costs and overhead--is necessary to get companies moving again. The authors' new model, "the startup corporation," marries the strengths of corporate scale to the nimbleness of entrepreneurs. For a model of the new startup corporation, the authors return again and again to Apple, which doesn't have the usual corporate structure and accounting systems. Not every company can be an Apple, but all companies can learn to break the bonds of operational thinking if they'll take the authors' lessons to heart"-- "From the bestselling authors of Making Innovation Work (30,000 copies sold and translated into ten languages) comes a book that questions everything about how organizations innovate. Key takeaway: classical business management and corporate structures by their very nature will kill, not create, breakthroughs. The authors describe a new kind of organization--the startup corporation--that will make established companies as innovative as startups"--